JUXTAPOSITION: The act or an instance of placing two or more things side by side, often to compare or contrast or… to create an interesting effect.

Set in Central New Jersey, the Good Vibe Trilogy is a coming-of-age story following the lives of two young people raised in diverse yet dysfunctional environments during the late 1970s. When their lives connect, it impacts the destinies of their friends and family over a forty-year span.

Volume One, The Paradise We Create, introduces Andrew ‘Drew’ Reubens. As a teen, he is a girl-crazy, self-involved kid at the center of a clique of performing arts geeks. One of the many females in his sphere is unfiltered and misunderstood Alyona ‘Yoyo’ Zalenkov, being raised in a rural cult environment with warped family values.

The result of their unlikely relationship is represented in the modern-day events of the story, as Andrew hosts a celebration at his Central Jersey establishment, The Good Vibe Lounge. When the younger generation of his family expresses a desire to understand more about their back story, Andrew pivots, between modern times and 1977, his climactic senior year of High School to weave the story of Drew and Yoyo… and a collection of characterful events and relationships along the way.

With the help of some of his oldest friends, Andrew takes a tour of the often comedic, sometimes tragic.. but all-so-typical journey of adolescents faced with the transition to life as adults in the real world.

The Good Vibe saga is a forty-year history of characters who navigate thru the wonders, challenges, and destiny of human interplay. Along the way, they take on these dynamics, with juxtaposed tales of adolescent frivolity, dysfunctional family, enduring friendship, the depth of romance and sensuous love, criminal behavior, deception, success, failure, the thrill of knowledge, personal progression, and… a good dose of recovering from regrets.

And ultimately seeking to balance ‘what might have been’ with everything happening at the place where reality meets up with all of it… for a reason.